- Whether you like it or
not this tiny computer that we keep in our pockets, that for many of us remains
powered on 24 hours a day and never more than two feet away from us at any point in time, is was probably one of
the most sensitive vaults of personal data that we have. It's no longer just a good
idea to secure our phones, it is absolutely critical. (clattering sounds) (whooshing) Welcome to All Things Secured. My name's Josh, and I'd like to begin
by thanking our sponsor for this week's video, Trend Micro. I've been using their
Premium Security Suite on all my devices lately,
including my kids iPads. And you'll see in this video just how their bundle of
services plays an important role in the security of our family's devices. And if you're strapped for time, the Trend Micro Mobile Security app can easily run an audit of your iPhone, and walk you through the
most critical changes that you need to make. Now, let's count down these nine ways that you can secure your iPhone right now. (whooshing) (gentle music) The first and lowest hanging
fruit is your iPhone passcode. For those of you who, like me, have been wearing masks a lot
more often thanks to COVID, I've been typing in my passcode almost as often as using my face ID. And if you're still using
a four digit passcode, you need to make some changes. Apple now gives us a lot more
flexibility in the length and type of passcode that we use. I recommend that you
set a numeric passcode that's at least six
digits long if not longer, or if you really want an
inconvenient, but secure code, you can do an alphanumeric phrase, which basically means you're
not just using numbers, but also letters and symbols. To change your passcode,
go into your Settings app, scroll down to find Face ID & Passcode. You'll have to enter
your passcode to get in. (gentle music) Click on Change Passcode, and then click Passcode Options. (gentle music) It's the custom code you see here that you wanna choose in
order to secure your iPhone. (gentle music) (whooshing) (gentle music) Another critical change
in this passcode settings has to do with your lock screen. For iPhones, your lock screen actually poses a little bit more of a security risk than you might realize. For example, if I were
to steal your phone, and you've allowed the control center to be accessed while locked, I can easily swipe down
and turn on airplane mode to make sure you can't
track your stolen phone. Thankfully, this is an easy fix with the Face ID and passcode settings. And then, for me, as you can see here, I've decided that the only
things I wanna be able to do on lock screen are access Siri, and reply with message. (whooshing) (gentle music) Next, we're looking at our location and Bluetooth permissions. I've been surprised by the number of apps that request permission to these features for what appears to be no
apparent reason to me at least. For example, when I checked
my Bluetooth permissions, I saw that the LinkedIn app had somehow requested and given permission to use my iPhone Bluetooth connection. Apparently LinkedIn uses this for a Find Other Members Nearby feature, but it's just ridiculous,
I'm not gonna use that. So that was a quick and easy opt-out. Now, if you go into your
Settings app and find Privacy, scroll down and find that, you can audit both your Bluetooth
and location permissions. Now, Bluetooth, as you see here, is just a simple yes or no setting, but location, if you go back there, allows you to choose from
three sharing options, Never, Ask Next Time, and then, While Using the App. And then you see these
gray and purple icons next to some of the apps, this shows you which apps have logged or used your GPS
location in the past 24 hours. So take a couple minutes
and look through here, decide which apps really need access to your Bluetooth and location settings. There really shouldn't be that many. (whooshing) (gentle music) The next part of your mobile
security is something I preach for anybody using any device; a password manager. On average, each of us has
more than 150 online accounts for which we have to keep
a username and password. Personally, I think I
have somewhere upwards of 350 at this point. The only way to manage
that number of accounts is by either reusing the same
password in multiple places, or by using a password manager. While it may seem risky for those of you who don't know much about it, it's actually a very secure way to create, store, and retrieve
high-quality passwords. Whenever I log in to any
app or account on my iPhone, I click right here where you see it says "Passwords" in the middle. And my username and
unique password are filled in automatically after
Face ID is confirmed. There are plenty of password manager apps on the market today,
but when you subscribe to the Trend Micro Premium Security Suite, it includes a password
manager that's easy to use, and it syncs between all of your devices. Then when I jump into my settings, you're gonna find Password, and then we're looking
for AutoFill Passwords. That's where you can choose
which password manager will auto fill on the logins when you click that password. (whooshing) (gentle music) This next tip for securing your iPhone. It may seem weird, but hear me out. Go to your home screen, find the Facebook app on your
phone and then tap and hold until you get a menu option to pop up. You wanna click Remove
App and then Delete App. I'm kinda joking here, but also kinda not. There are some apps like Instagram or various messaging apps
that are difficult use without your phone. But others like Facebook,
LinkedIn, and Twitter can honestly be accessed just as easily
on your internet browser. And the Facebook app is
notorious for attempting to track everything you
do, including location. Now, newer versions of iOS are
taking a very proactive step against apps that track your
data and are forcing them to make a request to do so. But there's a lot that we
don't even realize that we give over some times. So no matter whether you
use the app or your browser to access these social media sites, doing a separate audit
of your privacy settings is important. And this is really beyond
the scope of this video, but I did use the Trend Micro security app to scan my settings, and they told me which
privacy settings put me at the highest risk for
both Facebook and Twitter. (whooshing) (gentle music) If you've never heard of
two factor authentication. It's basically a second way
beyond your password to verify that you are who you say you are, in the case of your
iPhone's iCloud account, this is a way to secure
anything that you store in the iCloud, including
photos, contacts, messages, and a whole lot more. There's really no good reason not to turn on two factor
authentication for your phone. So, check and see if it's on for you. Go into your Settings app, and click on your name
here at the very top. It's here that you're gonna
click on Password & Security, and then find Two Factor Authentication. If that says on, then you're golden. If it says off, you'll wanna go through the process of turning this on. (whooshing) (gentle music) Did you know that when you share an image with somebody taken by your iPhone camera, it's often comes with GPS
coordinates of exactly where that photo was taken
within about a meter? Thankfully, there are many
places such as Facebook where this what's known as EXIF data, is automatically removed, but in other cases such
as if you were to post it on your own website, somebody could actually determine the exact location using the
hidden data of that photo. Now, there are two
things you could do here. For those who see no good
reason for having GPS data associated with your photos, you can turn it off completely. Just head into your settings app, click on Privacy, scroll down and click
on location services, sorry at the top. And then scroll down
and find the camera app. If you set this to "Never,"
the GPS data won't be recorded. Or you can just turn
off the precise location so that it's not exact coordinates. For those of you who like
location data for your photos, you can simply remove the
data when you share the photo. For example, when I click
share this photo, you see here on the top that I can click Options, and then turn off the location data. It will now share the photo without any of that GPS data on it. (whooshing) (gentle music) Finally, while this may
not be apply to everybody and it's worth it's own video, I'd like to touch on device
security for our kids. It's important to go
through your kids' devices and make these kinds of changes for them since they won't be doing it themselves. But it's also worth securing
the device of younger children by controlling what they
can or can't see or access. Some of this can be done via Apple family, but I have to be honest that, setting that up and using Apple family has been incredibly frustrating for me. Other than just limiting what
apps my kids can download, and keeping them from making
unauthorized purchases, it's really been no help to me at all. And that's where the
Trend Micro Family app has given me a lot more control
and safeguards for the kinds of YouTube videos they watch,
what kind of images they see, and even what they search for online. I can easily access reports of how they're using their devices, change the security settings, and manage the different
family devices that we have using one app on my phone. And you don't wanna wait
to make these kinda changes to your iPhone settings. And if you need more help
with maintaining your privacy and changing these settings, I recommend you give the Trend Micro Premium
Security Suite a try. It includes a VPN, a password manager, mobile security and dark web monitoring, bundled together at a price
that's certainly cheaper than if you were to get all
of these apps separately. Use the link in the description
to get a special discount to secure 10 devices in your home. And as always, I appreciate your support in the form of a like, and
commenting on this video. Here's to keeping, All Things Secured!
